"Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!" (2 Corinthians 5:17)

For over 90 years people have relied on this reference work in their daily study of God’s Word. Written originally in 1909, C. I. Scofield’s intent was to provide a concise but complete tool that would meet the need of someone just beginning to read the Bible. Cyrus Scofield was born in Lenawee County, Michigan, but during the American Civil War after his conversion to evangelical Christianity in 1879, Scofield assisted in the St. Louis campaign conducted by Dwight L. Moody and in 1883 Scofield was ordained as a Congregationalist minister, and he accepted the pastorate of small mission church founded by that denomination.

Genesis 8:15-22 New King James Version (NKJV)

15 Then God spoke to Noah, saying, 16 “Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. 17 Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you: birds and cattle and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” 18 So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. 19 Every animal, every creeping thing, every bird, and whatever creeps on the earth, according to their families, went out of the ark.

The Third Dispensation, Human Government, began when Noah and his family left the ark. Under Conscience, as in Innocency, man utterly failed, and the judgment of the Flood marks the end of the second dispensation and the beginning of the third. The declaration of the Noahic Covenant subjects humanity to a new test. Its distinctive feature is the institution, for the first time, of human government–the government of man by man. Up to this time no man had the right to take another man’s life (Gen 4:10-11, 14-15, 23-24). In this new dispensation, although man’s direct moral responsibility to God continued (Mt 22:21, “Give …. to God what is God’s…”) God delegated to him certain areas of His authority, in which he was to obey God through submission to his fellow man (“Give …. to Caesar what is Caesar’s,” Mt 22:21). So God instituted a corporate relationship of man to man in human government.

The highest function of government is the protection of human life, out of which arises the responsibility of capital punishment. All other governmental powers are implied in that. It follows that the third dispensation is distinctively that of human government. Man is responsible to govern the world for God. That responsibility rested upon the whole race, Jew and Gentile, until the failure of Israel under the Palestinian Covenant (Deu 28.- 30:1-10 ) brought the judgment of the Captivities, when “the times of the Gentiles” (See) ; Luke 21:24 ; Revelation 16:14 began, and the government of the world passed exclusively into Gentile hands ; Daniel 2:36-45 ; Luke 21:24 ; Acts 15:14-17 .

Man failed to rule righteously. That both Israel and the Gentiles have governed for self, not God, is sadly apparent. The judgment of the confusion of tongues ended the racial testing; that of the captivities, the Jewish; while the Gentile testing will end in the smiting of the Image (Da 2.) and the judgment of the nations Matthew 25:31-46 .

Genesis 11:32 New King James Version (NKJV)

32 So the days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran.
Now, let us worship our Lord and Savior, Jesus, as we are blessed by the orchestra and five hundred member choir of the Prestonwood Baptist Church.

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